OOKenya:As Farms Dry Up, Women Switch To Clean Energy Businesses That Save Forests such as energy efficient cook stoves, and charcoal briquettes made from waste. Clean energy businesses are giving women steady income and protecting forests, which in turn help stave off drought.

When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

CIVILIZATIONAL COLLAPSE, OR ACTION – YOU CHOOSE

As Resources Become Scarce, Population Levels Must Shrink Humanely or will do so inhumanely.

· has undermined every complex society in the 7,000 years of recorded human history.

When Jackals and Lions Crash, Gazelles Boom showing how the crash of one species can temporarily benefit another. Source www.daviddarling.info

Urban centers can flourish temporarily but unsustainably by:

· by importing resources, exporting wastes and disorder,

· and using social stratification to generate temporary surpluses of wealth.

· But these processes all yield diminishing returns: eventually, every boom turns to bust.

Such civilizational cycles partly mirror the adaptive cycles in ecological systems, where one crashing cycle clears the way for a new one to start.

A Green Future With A Sustainable Population is implicit in this vision, in which swirling crowds are absent. Source byanajusta.blogspot.com

MEH: the author concludes by hoping the next civilization does better. Here’s my conclusion:

· Rather than hope the next civilization can collaborate internally and externally with the natural world,

· we should tackle these problems – population, pollution, resource depletion, and climate change – now

· because the next civilization will not have the advantages we have had to do so, or even prosper as much.

*

*

TRUMP TRUMPED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

Under Trump, More US Children Will Die Prematurely From Asthma since his policies will worsen the air pollution that is linked to this lethal lung disease.

OOTracking Trump’s Treachery: Environmental Deregulations – the Columbia Law School (NY) keeps an ongoing track of Trump’s efforts, abetted by the GOP, to cut environmental protections at its Climate Deregulation Tracker.

OOEPA Wipes Its Climate Change Site As Protesters March on Climate In Washington–both data and informationon the causes and effects of climate change disappeared. Welcome to the Dark Ages!

OODonald Trump Is Slashing Programs Linking Climate Change To US National Security despite the fact that over the last several decades, top government officials and even military brass have come to view climate change as a national security issue. He’s doing so via:

· Defunding agencies involved in protecting the nation from climate-related threats, and

OOWith Trump Government In Retreat, Companies Step Up On Emissions – nearly half of the nation’s largest corporations have set emissions reductions targets, even as the Trump administration walks away from goals set by President Obama.

Sadly, if Trump acted, we could do even more.

OOChina, India Become Global Climate Leaders As West Falters – and Trump fails to lead.

*

*

CLIMATE MYTH BUSTERS!

OO The Reality of Climate Change – below are some of the biggest climate myths currently trending, compared to the reality. A good place for more details is here … where even more myths are busted!

· As the land heats, spurring wildfires, the settling dark ash on ice speeds its melt,

· Including the Greenland ice sheet, which adds to sea level rise.

· Ocean currents can also be slowed by the addition of meltwater,

· Affecting the movement of heat globally, and thus the weather.

We must adapt by cutting emissions as soon and far as possible, to slow this accelerating train of climate destruction.

A River Runs Red In Antarctica – aptly named Blood Falls, it’s caused by rust in the surrounding rocks – and the melting ice…. Source Wikipedia

OOThe Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Draining Huge Quantities Of Water Out To Sea – say new reports. Takeaways:

· much like Greenland is doing in the Arctic:

· what started with melting edges creating icebergs

· has expanded to surface melt ponds and streams

· sending meltwater directly into the sea, raising sea levels.

BUT…

· This contribution to sea level rise is currently negligible,

· Altho the darker melt ponds can speed surface ice melting,

· And ice melting is predicted to double by 2100.

OOGuess Coreectly When The Ice Melts, And Win $300,000! When the ice breaks up on the Tanana River at the city of Nenana, Alaska, that is. It’s happening earlier and earlier due to global warming. This year it happened on May 1st – appropriately enough, May Day, and 42 people won.

Frozen Methane Waiting For Spring to Melt and release it into the atmosphere; previously it was frozen on the lake’s bottom, until warming released it to the top, capped by ice. Credit Chip Phillips at Flickr

· so it’s unclear if the melted methane could push up into the atmosphere.

· No one knows.

OOAn Ancient Ice Sheet Collapse Indicates The Future For Us – At the end of the last Ice Age, an ice sheet covering Iceland melted and collapsed. Research indicates that:

It melted far faster than it grew initially:

· It took about 10,000 years to reach maximum size,

· But about 3,000 years to reduce, then 1,000 more to collapse to a third of its size,

· Under warming comparable to our present warming trajectory –

· And melt rates comparable to how fast Greenland ice is melting.

*

*

GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OOToday’s US Energy Jobs Are In Solar, Not Coal – in 2016, solar employed 370,000+ people, nearly as many as employed by natural gas, and more than coal – but without the same level of government subsidies. Wind employed another 100,000. Trump refurses to focus on these job generators, though.

OOPowerhouse: The Startup Making Solar The Most Accessible Energy In The World

OOCrowdfunding Helping Scale Up Solar Power For Africa’s Poor via a community of young European investors, who are helping solar firms thrive on the African continent when local banks are reluctant to offer loans.

Harvard Divestment Movement Starts Yielding Results

OOHarvard ‘Pausing’ Investments In Some Fossil Fuels and green groups welcome the breakthrough after a five-year campaign.

OOCalifornia’s Landmark Climate-Change Program Would Also Fight Air Pollution Under Proposal

OOUnderstanding Climate Change: A Weekly Video Compiliation Of Climate News – often has more than just a summary of extreme weather: check out this source for developments in solutions, consequences, and insights as well.

OOThe Arctic Is Melting And Guess Who Faces More Flooding — That’s Right, South Florida

which will face higher sea rise than previously thought, says a new assessment.

How can this be? Gravity, literally. All masses have an attraction proportional to their size, which is how gravity works: the attraction exerted by the giant mass of the Earth on far smaller objects (that glass you just “dropped,” a falling body, etc.).

THE MORNING EMAIL

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

As an ice sheet melts, it loses mass (the ice itself), which decreases its gravitational attraction: the net effect is that surrounding water (including the added meltwater) flows away from it and towards other larger masses, such as land. So, sea levels decrease around the shrinking ice sheet, but increase elsewhere – in this case, Florida.

· will knock out seafood species higher up on the chain, such as fish and shellfish.

What can humanity do? Besides cutting carbon emissions, we can:

· Reduce oceanic pollution;

· Create well designed sanctuary zones to protect life from habitat loss;

· Reduce global overfishing.

OOEurope’s Meat And Dairy Farming Vulnerable As Climate Change Worsens Water Scarcity half a world away caused by climate change could push up prices for meat and dairy products in Europe by disrupting supplies of south american soybeans, which are widely used as feed for livestock, new researchers say.

His tips for talking to climate denying Republican and conservative elites:

· talk about the science in a dispassionate, reasonable, non-screedy, calm, careful way. This is powerful, because many do not know that much of what they think is either nonsensical or disingenuous.

· Make a conservative case for climate action: conservatively confronting the real risks of climate change continuing means we should not take the chance of inaction. We must hedge our bets, as we do in business.

Daily Climate editor Pete Myers: Yes, that’s going to be hard. But convincing green growth optimists and ‘eco-modernists’ that their rose-tinted visions undermine serious efforts to confront imminent problems is also not easy.

Credit Joel Pett at USA Today

OOA Climate Activist Explains How To Spread A Message Of Hope Takeaways:

OORice Is A Big Polluter. It Doesn’t Have To Be – A new technique uses half the water, less fertilizer, cuts carbon.

*

*

NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

Caribou in Denali National Park Are Dying because the abundance of forage plants now peaks before the animals arrive at their summer breeding grounds. Source Design Pics Inc, National Geographic Creative

OOHow Warming Is Profoundly Changing A Great Northern Wilderness As temperatures soar in the Yukon:

· A temperature-sensitive beetle has infested 900,000 acres of forest;

· While Mountain lions and deer are also moving in from the south.

· Wildlife populations from moose to hares are shifting or declining;

A Melting Glacier Is Drying This Lake as its melt channel blocks its intake. Credit Jim Best

· Mountain sheep and caribou disperse,

· As woody shrubs take over shrinking tundra and alpine ecossytems.

· A rapidly melting glacier has cut reversed a river’s flow,

· Threatening the existence of a 50 mile long lake.

This is, in many ways, “a sped-up version of what is happening throughout the world,” says one scientist.

Racing For Its Survival – the Purple Emporer butterfly has migrated 125+ miles in a single decade, well above the 10+ mile average for land species; marine species migrate 4x faster than land ones, on aveerage. Credit Tim Melling

OOHalf Of All Species Are On The Move—And We’re Feeling It – As climate change displaces everything from moose to microbes, it’s affecting human foods, businesses, and diseases. Takeaways:

· Migration is happening faster to more species than scientists expected;

· Not all species migrate in predictable directions or at predictable speeds;

· As species disperse, ecological relationships are destroyed, while new hybrids develop;

· No one species’ survival is guaranteed by its migration.

OODrylands Will Suffer If World Warms 2°C – both reducing arable croplands, and preventing many deeper-rooted shrubs and trees from growing at all.

*

*

SPEAKING OUT

Ask Not For Whom The Bear Dies – continued global warming will spur the untimely deaths of many millions of people as it continues to heat the planet.

OOMany Thousands March Against Trump Climate Policies In D.C., Across USA in another 300 locations.

Keep your signs handy, folks – I have a feeling we’ll be marching for a long time to come, sigh.

OOClimate March Draws Thousands Of Protesters Alarmed By Trump’s Agenda in Washington DC, and hundreds of other cities on April 29, 2017.

OO20 Of The Funniest Signs From The March For Science– enjoy the laughs, from all over the world. Tens of thousands of people in 600+ cities on seven continents across the globe came together at the March for Science. On April 22, 2017.

Credit Dan Beecham at BBC

OOYes, I Am A Climate Alarmist.: Global Warming Is A Crime Against Humanity – There can be no greater crime against humanity than the destruction of conditions that make human life possible.

OONew York Times Rocked: Angry Readers Cancel Following Climate Denier Hire – Willful ignorance may be protected speech, but it does not deserve a place in the US’s most important newspaper.

Climate scientist Michael E. Mann launched the hashtag #ShowYourCancellation, while other scientists called for a boycott of the newpaper.

OOVermont Conservation Officials Push Lawmakers For Carbon Tax to replace or reduce other taxes residents currently pay, members of a dozen town energy commissions demand.

OOMillions Of Colombians At Risk From Climate Change says its environmental minister, resulting in worsening natural disasters like flooding and landslides, which could kill hundreds and cause serious infrastructure damage.

*

*

FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES

Trump’s Vision of BLM Lands – And This Is Exactly Where Coal Should Stay despite Trump’s obsession of reviving it as a fuel. screencapture of the BLM website

OOBig, Young US Coal Fired Power Plants Are Closing as cleaner options become more affordable choices.

OOThe Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, And Coal Won’t Cut It. Fifteen charts about how Trump is building a dangerous “age of plenty on steroids.”

OO UK: Mood Black As Community Rakes Over Coal Mine Plan that would threaten the bore water they rely on.

*

*

FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes.

Much of the US and its surrounding waters are experiencing warmer than normal temperatures, and much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.comhere. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this blossom I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

]]>https://climatechangereports.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/climate-change-this-week-preventing-collapse-solar-delivers-us-jobs-and-more/feed/1melharteClimate Change This Week: How Civilization Could Collapse, People Take A Stand, and More!https://climatechangereports.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/climate-change-this-week-how-civilization-could-collapse-people-take-a-stand-and-more/
https://climatechangereports.wordpress.com/2017/05/05/climate-change-this-week-how-civilization-could-collapse-people-take-a-stand-and-more/#respondSat, 06 May 2017 00:56:00 +0000http://climatechangereports.wordpress.com/?p=2803Continue reading →]]>

Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.

And the chances of Donald Trump’s family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly – as are ours.

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in this all these beautiful creatures – including humanity – is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests. Our future depends on it.

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

Amazonian Deforestation Is Rising, Once Again as a corrupt, shortsighted government seeks to profit by helping agribusinesses steal land that belongs to indigenous tribes – and convert forests to crops and cattle. Credit Ricardo Beliel at BrazilPhotos

OOBrazil: Amazon Indigenous Tribes Stand Against President Temer’s Govt Indigenous groups control large reserves in the Amazon, and have the constitutional right to more, BUT:

· agribusiness and land thieves are working with

· the Brazilian Congress and the Temer administration

· to prevent recognition of new indigenous territories,

· and to defund FUNAI, the federal agency representing Indian concerns.

OOEarth Day Protesters In Hundreds Of Cities March For Science – and was covered by major news TV outlets, such as ABC News, PBS news and CBS news.

@@ Science In America – Neil deGrasse Tyson is picking up viral momentum in this 4 minute video by making a powerful case that science is an “Exercise in finding what is true”that has driven America’s successes – it’s not just nerds in white coats.

Personal notes from the field: I arrived at Reagan airport the day before, just in time to see a distracted Bernie Sanders pass by me. Momentarily shocked, I recovered enough to shout at his retreating back: “Go, Bernie!” One of many heroes… The march itself:

· Ecological strain is seen in a developing global depletion of vital resources,

· Such as groundwater, soil, fisheries and forests,

· All of which will deplete further with climate change.

That Rich Guy Depends On Others More Than He Thinks – not just for opening doors. Think food, maintaining his house, and his life. Source google images

· BUT research shows that the increased hoarding of wealth by elite

· Promises to collapse civilization, even without ecological strain,

· By economically starving the lower classes upon which the elite ultimately depend for labor.

We’re already on our way:

· Examples of vast inequality already exist within and between countries;

· the top 10% of global income earners account for almost as much total climate changing emissions as the remaining 90%.

· about half the world’s population lives on less than $3 per day.

Not Sustainable Over The Long Haul – too many people ultimately hastens our civilization’s collapse, research shows. Source Library Foundation of Los Angeles, AlanWeisman

· Sustainability depends on human population levels:

· the more people, the fewer resources, and the faster collapse ensues.

· Every new person adds to the complexity, and cost of sustaining, civilization.

We can avoid collapse and stabilize onto a sustainable trajectory by:

· making rational choices to reduce factors

· such as inequality, explosive population growth, how fast we deplete and pollute natural resources

· – all perfectly doable things –

· but we need to do them SOON, before these factors avalanche into inevitable collapse.

If we don’t, post-collapse survival in the wake of mass die-offs is a pretty grim and harrowing future – if there is one at all. A world depleted of the natural resources that kept humanity alive under far more primitive conditions previously will make our survival much more difficult.

*

*

TRUMP TRUMPED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

Tracking Trump’s Treachery: Environmental Deregulations – the Columbia Law School (NY) keeps an ongoing track of Trump’s efforts, abetted by the GOP, to cut environmental protections:

OOClimate Change Is Now And Urgent, But Trump Is Deaf – Yet in the face of this urgent challenge – one that affects all of humanity, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, America and the rest of the world – Trump has chosen to accelerate climate change. He and his aides are encouraging pollution.

OOThis Graphic Puts Global Warming In Full Perspective – Using a pre-industrial 1881-1910 baseline temperature average as normal, March 2017

· Was 1.3 degrees C above normal,

· And marked a whopping 627 months in a row that were hotter than normal

“To say the world is having a streak like no other is an understatement. Global warming has made cold scarce on a planetary scale… If you were born after December 1964, you’ve never experienced a month cooler than average on this planet.”

Climate & Extreme Weather News #20 (April 15th-April 20th 2017) – in this episode, flooding in Iran, extreme heat in India, and unfortunately, much more – all very graphically shot. From the new youtube channel:

Love Your Child? Give Them The Gift of a Decent Future and start acting to do so today. You can help encourage others to vote for climate action leaders, and help women avoid unintended pregnancies. Doing the latter not only saves money for communities, it lowers overpopulation and consumption, drivers of climate change.

OOThe Religious Case For Caring About Climate Change – it’s about values, not just data.

What actually motivates people are the 3 great loves:

· Love of neighbor: You’re aware of the real and present suffering climate or pollution are causing

· love of creation: concern for how our natural world is being decimated, extinction of animals, the oceans.

· love of children: what are you leaving for the children in your mind’s eyes right now?

“I’m a big fan of the Exodus story. At times we find ourselves with our back against the wall or the sea, but at some point the waters do part and we’re able to walk through. Being able to have those stories and connect to what we’re going through right now is powerful.”

Winning At Climate Change – yeah, it’s gloomy, but we can win this game, and feel good about doing so. Here’s how. This is the first part of a series on climate change and our behavior; you can see other episodes here.

OOHow Psychology Can Trick Us Into Keeping The Planet Habitable – increasing awareness and finding the right motivation to change our behavior.

OOBloomberg News Today Announces Site Devoted To Climate Change Climate Changed, which offers easy to understand, visual explanations of climate change issues, such as the video above, and others that talk about solutions, like this.

Climate Changed gives Bloomberg a leg up on The Wall Street Journal, which rarely covers climate change, and is arguably its chief competitor in the market for prestige journalism.

MEH: Now if only the TV news shows and weather forecasters follow suit….

OOUS Business Schools Need To Include Climate Change Mitigation – as part of the necessary core curriculum, because climate change is already affecting major businesses. For starters, Starbucks is bracing for a coffee shortage, as a changing climate threatens to dramatically lower coffee production.

OONatural Gas Moves To The Naughty List – it burns cleaner than coal, but

· still emits climate changing pollution

· Its main component, methane is a far more potent climate changing gas than CO2

· Methane leaks from mining and distributing it help send methane levels soaring

· The US gas industry in 2016 emitted more emissions than coal for the first time.

· Green groups are gearing to stop gas fired plants

· Recognizing that this “bridge fuel” to clean renewable energy

· Must be left behind as soon as possible.

· The focus will be stopping gas fired plants and pipelines.

Time to surge the spread of clean renewable energy.

*

*

FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

*

*

If we do not live sustainably,

Our children will die inhumanely.

@@Myth vs Truth: The Huge Value of Contraception is an incisive, heartfelt recognition of the value of contraception by Sarah Brown, CEO, The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes. As it is, much of California is now experiencing unusual warmth, as are much of the waters surrounding the US.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.comhere. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild strawberry I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

US Extreme Weather Disasters So Far In 2017 Have CostA Record $5 Billion Credit Rick Meyer at UPI

Meanwhile, irreversible sea rise and loss of valuable species continue,

And US fiscal costs are escalating from climate change effects.

Putting environmental efforts on hold for 4-8 years is unthinkable for mnay scientists.

“We are in an emergency state for the planet,” said a global change biologist at Stanford University.

“The problem is not climate change alone. Pervasive pollution, invasive species, habitat loss and mass extinctions have swelled into critical problems within the United States and globally. Each compounds the other, and all are amplified by climate change.”

Credit Patrick Chappate at the New York Times

For a summary of the environmental disaster Trump and the GOP are creating, check out:

The Salt Lake City Council and Mayor Jackie Biskupski have jointly published a plan to tackle climate change and carbon pollution after both made a promise last year to hit sustainability benchmarks by 2040.

New York Times Hires Extreme Climate Denier New columnist Bret Stephens dismisses as “imaginary” the climate reality routinely reported by the Times. MEH: The NYT elsewhere defended its decision, saying “millions” agree with him. MEH: The same could be said for many fiction writers — I vote for Margaret Atwood!

*

*

HOT NEWS

OOMarch Was Second Hottest On Record Globally It followed the second hottest February and third hottest January, showing just how much Earth has warmed from the continued buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

OOScientists Just Found A Strange, Worrying Crack In One Of Greenland’s Biggest Glaciers – It portends a huge iceberg in coming years, weakening the bulwark that keeps roughly a foot of sea level rise stored in the Petermann Glacier in check on Greenland.

OOAs Permafrost Melts, Uncovered Mammoth Tusks Boom Ivory TradeMEH: I can see Stephen Colbert making hay with this one… climate is upending humanity but, hey, want to buy some ivory?

*

*

GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OOSaudis To Seek Bids For 700-Megawatt Wind And Solar Projects as part of the kingdom’s $50 billion program to boost power generation and cut its oil consumption.

OOCountries Cut Carbon By Putting A Price On It Carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are two ways countries around the globe are using economic incentives to reduce greenhouse gases. They’re based on a simple idea: if something is made to cost more, there’ll be less of it produced.

OOThe Quest To Capture And Store Carbon – And Slow Climate Change — Just Reached A New Milestone with the launch of the first US large scale facility combining bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.

India Mines the Sun, Rather Than Coal with a national program encouraging the growth of solar power.

OOIndia Pivots Away From Coal-Fired Power chased by drought, rising costs, and clean technology; the world’s third-largest coal user joins China and US in a shift from black fuel.

· REGIONAL CONFLICTS: Climate change has increased drought in the middle east, and has contributed to the rise of ISIS, the destabilization of the middle east, and millions of Syrian and other refugees desperately fleeing to other countries.

· MIAMI IS SINKING: Many parts are already experiencing sea water regularly flooding at merely high tides, as a result of rising sea levels.

· FARMERS ARE UNDER STRESS: and trying to adapt to climate changes but with an increase in frequency and severity of drought and heavy rains, these extremes make getting crops difficult. Already crops are shifting north in the northern hemisphere.

· PINE BEETLE DEVASTATING FORESTS: The Pine Beetle has shifted further north with warmer winters and exploded with longer summers that allow it to reproduce 2-3x more, devastating extremely large pine forests from the US to Canada, and causing significant economic and environmental fallout.

· WILDFIRES ARE INCREASING: Wildfires are becoming more frequent, more severe and covering more ground due to climate change. This is killing people, burning communities out, reducing air quality substantially over major areas of continents, costing quite a lot, and adding climate changing emissions.

· INSURANCE PREMIUMS ARE UP: Insurance companies have been paying out a lot more claims due to climate change, and thus hiking their premiums and rates. They see that climate change results in extreme weather events, causing significant economic damage. This forces insurers to adapt and lobby for change.

· PERMAFROST IS MELTING: Northern communities housing 35 million people are built on permanently frozen ground, permafrost, which is already occurring, destroying buildings and infrastructure such as roads. Permafrost warming in parts of Alaska is accelerating.

· TORNADOES ARE INCREASING AND SHIFTING RANGE: occurring in clusters, increasing in destructive power and being seen further north and in different seasons, as predicted by models to occur under continued climate change. Communities without tornado experience or preparation are being hit.

No Coffee???

OOSix of Your Favorite Foods Are Threatened By Climate Change – they are:

· Coffee – yields are down globally due to hotter, drier weather; the most common species could be extinct by 2080.

· Avocados – are weather-sensitive and slow-growing, and recent droughts have dropped yields in the two major producers, Australia and California.

· Mangoes – will “burn” if it’s too hot, and its major producer, India is becoming extremely hot and drier, another challenge for mango production.

No Maple Syrup???

· Maple syrup – relies trees freezing at night, and then thawing during the day so the sap flows down the tree. But as winters get warmer, this process is becoming disrupted, decreasing sap flow – and the sugar content.

· Fish N Chips – relies on cold-water fish, which are migrating further north as seas warm, dropping accessibility; they are being replaced in UK waters by squid, sardines and anchovies.

· Chocolate – comes from a plant that is sensitive to dryness; as the major producer (50% of global production) dries, it is wreaking havoc on the cocoa bean, meaning less, more expensive chocolate.

No Chocolate???

Scientists predict that by 2050 temperatures will be too hot for the cocoa bean to grow in the main regions that produce chocolate, likely turning it into a rare and expensive delicacy.

<>

OO11% Of Chinese Deaths Due To Air Pollution Tied To US, Europe Consumer Goods –says a new study. Takeaways:

· Such pollution killed 700,000+ people globally in 2007, the most recent year with data.

OOArtist Shows What Climate Change Will Do To Our National Parks where the creep of change is playing out in places that Americans want to preserve for the enjoyment of future generations. MEH: That bear was drawn from a real photograph of actually a polar bear — I’ve seen the photo.

OOClimate Change Is Ruining Farmers’ Lives, But Only A Few Will Admit It

King Tide in San Francisco BaySource blog.savesfbay.org

OOSea-Level Rise In California Could Be Catastrophic a new study says, with a 60+% chance of a 3+ foot sea rise by 2100 under business as usual.

OOUnless Emissions Drop, Much Of Coastal Louisiana Will Be Swamped – A few weeks ago President Donald Trump announced a trade: A few thousand temporary jobs for West Virginia coal miners in exchange for letting the Gulf of Mexico drown much of south Louisiana over the next 50 years.

OOEx UN Climate Chief Campaigns For Decisive Action To Curb Emissions By 2020 On 6 Fronts – Christiana Figueres has started the Mission 2020 campaign with a decarbonization roadmap to reach these 2020 goals:

· Energy: Renewables will need to outcompete fossil fuels worldwide

· Transport: Zero emission transport options will be chosen in major cities and transport routes

· Infrastructure: Cities and states will be using plans to fully decarbonize infrastructure by 2050

How Palm Oil Fuels Climate Change: DeforestationCredit Matthias Klum

· Land Use: Large-scale deforestation to be replaced by land restoration; agriculture shifts to earth-friendly practices

· Industry: Heavy industry commits to being Paris-compliant

· Finance: Investment in climate action is $1+trillion per year, and all financial institutions have a disclosed transition strategy

Businesses and governments only have three years to act to steer away from a course that will lock in the most devastating impacts of climate change, says the campaign.

· Vertical farms indoors use a fraction of the energy and water needed by outdoor farms.

· Using historical data to prevent flooding

· Smart energy grids save money

· Low-impact development standards for cities retains water and cools the city.

Local Nature Preserves Can Help Preserve Cities Source naturepreserves.ohiodnr.gov

· Use local natural systems like wetlands for water management.

· Create urban ecosystem to supply important services like water management.

· Give rivers more flood room so they don’t flood cities.

· Account for climate change in planning city infrastrcture.

OONext 10 Years Critical For Achieving Climate Change Goals says a new study. To have a good chance of meeting the limits set by the Paris Agreement, humanity needs to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions while preserving carbon sinks, with net emissions peaking within the decade.

OOProject Drawdown Aims To Reverse Global Warming – this new book offers a pathway to get to the point where greenhouse gases peak in the atmosphere and begin declining by 2050.

Heartland Institute’s Climate Denial Campaign Into Schools – they mailed a climate denial book to 25,000 US teachers around the US. How and why did they do it? What is the chief motivation? What are the techniques they employ to cast doubt on climate science? Check out more here.

Cover Cropping Helps Soil Absorb Carbon Source maumeeag.osu.edu

OOJoining The Fight Against Climate Change Would Help Farming Thrive – Farmers have the political clout necessary to influence environmental and climate change policies.

OOGreat Barrier Reef Further Harmed By Run-Off Pollution From Cyclone Debbie – yet another sting, this time from the tail from Cyclone Debbie, with fresh run-off pollution from torrential rains sweeping into Great Barrier Reef water, smashing many corals.

OOLiana And Other Vines Impeding Carbon Storage In South American Rainforests – and Central American ones, too, as they proliferate under global warming.

“Once There Was A Butterfly…” may be what our future children will only know of many of these beautiful creatures, such as this English Peacock Butterfly. Source greenreview.blogspot.com

OOUK: Disastrous 2016 Data Show Butterflies Are ‘Failing To Cope’ With Climate Change– and the pollution causing it:

· 40 out of nearly 60 species declined in 2016, with the survival on some in doubt.

· Three quarters of UK butterflies have declined over the last 40 years.

*

*

SPEAKING OUT

Get the BIG Picture, Trump?Source The Autonomous Space Agency Network

OO‘First Protest In Space’ Targets Trump With An Astronaut’s Famous Words originally used when viewing Earth from the moon: “You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a b****.’ “

OOUK: Lawyers Sue Government To Produce Plan To Fight Climate Change – as is now required by law. The government has 21 days to produce a plan or face legal action.

Take It Away said the judge to the pipeline company, after hearing the case of the native Americans. Source iStock

OOOklahoma:Tribal Members Defeat Natural Gas Pipeline Company – forcing the company to remove a pipeline they had installed on their lands.

OOWhy Scientists Are Fighting Back: We’ve Had Enough Of Trump’s War On Facts

“the principle that demonstrable facts and evidence – not fake news, alternative facts, supposition or innuendo – must form the backbone of public decisions. It is what separates a democracy from a theocracy, monarchy, or dictatorship, all forms of government in which “the truth” is whatever the ruler says it is…”

*

*

LET’S MARCH!!

We Resist. We Build. We Rise. Let’s March for our children and our future by marching for action on the climate on April 29, 2017.

OOTennessee: 2 Cases Bring Coal’s Hidden Hazard, Coal Ash, To Light Coal ash, the hazardous byproduct of burning coal to produce power, is a particularly insidious legacy of the nation’s dependence on coal: 100+ million tons are produced every year.

OOOur Most Iconic National Parks Are In Danger Of Becoming Oil And Gas Drilling Hot Spots under Trump’s 19th executive order, titled “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth,” which may also make it easier for energy companies to drill in America’s national parks.

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes.

Much of the US and waters surrounding it are experiencing warmer than normal temperatures.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

OOHow To Stop Deforestation: ‘Indigenous People Are The BestPark Rangers.’ Forests soak up greenhouse gases, so how do we ensure their protection? Their inhabitants know best, studies show.

OOForests Offer Cool Way To Ease Climate Fears New global database of trees affirms the need for greater conservation and protection of forests to slow the pace of global warming.

When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

*

*

NEW SOCIAL THREAT: COMPLACENCY ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Clean Power Is A Good Start… but humanity needs to make far more substantial changes that involve creating sustainable populations and economies, and regrowing forests, if we are to prevent civilizational collapse from climate change.

· Some US companies publicly defy Trump, calling for climate action, without doing so themselves,

· Trying to “greenwash” themselves and improve company profits via public approval.

· About 66+% of the US public will not support companies that appear to hurt the environment.

· Buy American, yes, but check that companies back up their talk with action.

*

*

WATER, MORE OR LESS

OOCalifornia: Drought’s Over; But Climate Change Isn’t MEH: and if you count groundwater as part of our water budget, then we’ll be in drought for decades, until our aquifers replenish. Meantime, we have a far smaller agricultural safety net for the next drought…

OOSix Images Show What Happened To California’s Drought The state’s surface water drought was erased this winter after massive storms dumped precipitation. Here’s a look at what challenges lie ahead – like preparing for the next drought.

It’s Fine Until The Rains And Tides Come… to the exploding cities in the Pearl River delta. Credit Josh Haner at the New York Times, modified

OORising Waters Threaten China’s Rising Cities – exploding development and populations are colliding with climate change in the Pearl River Delta.

Climate change, and land sinking under ever more development, are creating ever more intense and damaging floods, and tidal surges.

OOVital Groundwater Depleted Faster Than Ever Globally – Global use of irreplaceable groundwater is exhausting the supply so fast that researchers say it will drive up food prices and hit international trade.

OOThe Vanishing Nile: A Great River Faces A Multitude Of Threats under assault on two fronts – a massive dam under construction upstream in Ethiopia and rising sea levels leading to saltwater intrusion downstream.

The Train Just Left — For Good in 220 cities, if Trump has his way. Mass transit keeps climate changing transport emissions down.

OOTrump To Defund Amtrak Train Service To 220 US Cities which would lose all passenger train service per Trump’s budget, creating a nightmare scenario for people who depend on passenger rail, transit, commuter rail, and even regional air service, from Wall Street to Main Street.

One Way Trump Is Killing US Babies – rolling back pollution limits will increase cases of asthma, which is strongly linked to US fossil fuel pollution, and has killed US babies and toddlers, who are especially vulnerable to harm from pollution.

OOTrump Plan Would Slash EPA Vehicle Testing Budget including for vehicle emissions and fuel economy but will seek to raise fees on industry to pay for some testing, says the plan.

The United States should continue to be “engaged” in international climate change discussions but the Paris climate change agreement is a “bad deal” for the country, the head of the EPA said Sunday. Reuters. Apr 03

OOWhat President Trump Can Learn About Climate Change From President Xi China is:

· moving away from fossil fuels to renewable power,

· making major commitments to reduce both choking smog and climate-changing carbon emissions

It’s a Question of Vision: Which Do You Prefer? Under Trump, the Bureau of Land Management page literally went black, with a coal seam.

OOPublic Lands Agency Changes Website From Family Visiting A Park To Black Coal– the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees nearly 260 million acres of land, including ecologically vital conservation areas, has changed the image on its homepage from a scenic park vista to a massive wall of coal.

OOWe’re Creating A Perfect Storm Of Unprecedented Global Warming If we do not reduce our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, by 2100 the Earth will be as hot as it was 50 million years ago in the early Eocene, with CO2 levels over twice as much as today, shows a new study.

Green Plants Stored CO2 Over Millions of Years … And Now We’re Releasting It, As the Sun Gets Warmer…

*MEH: there is a substantial difference in the scale of change each can affect on our atmosphere: human activities that pump CO2 into the air at a huge rate are going to change the planetary heat balance over the next century far faster, especially with the help of natural feedback cycles that further add to the warming, than the changing intensity of the sun…

· Because it is fed by heavier, saltier, warmer Atlantic water from the south, that stays deep normally.

· But as Arctic ice melts, the exposed surface is mixed by winds that

· Bring warmer water to the surface and speed melting of remaining ice.

“ The ocean’s role in sea ice retreat, it used to be minimal, but as sea ice retreats it’s one of those positive feedback mechanisms,” a researcher said. “And we’re talking a lot of heat in the Atlantic layer, it could melt all the ice in the Arctic if it were to pop up to the surface.”

OOFire And Ice: Tambora, Receding Glaciers And The Birth Of Modern Climate-Research

Glaciers worldwide have experienced a constant retreat. The general trend shows even a stronger acceleration in the last 30 years, causing concern among scientists.

OOThe Massive Crack In The Antarctic Ice Shelf Is Hanging On By A 12-Mile ‘Thread’ and once that breaks, it will release yet another massive iceberg signalling the continuing melt of ice at both poles from a heating planet.

OOThe World’s Snowiest Place Is Starting To Melt in the mountains of northwestern Japan, which have long received up to 125 feet of snow a year—but that’s starting to change.

Credit Lisa McKeon

OODocumenting Glaciers In The Dying Days Of Ice in Montana’s Glacier National Park, as climate change hastens their end.

*

*

GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OORenewables Cut Europe’s Carbon Emissions By 10% In 2015 – A surge in the use of wind and solar energy helped Europe to cut its fossil fuel consumption, says a new report.

OOMore Renewable Energy For Less: Capacity Grew In 2016 As Costs Fell The world added record levels of renewable energy capacity in 2016 while spending less on clean energy development, says a new report.

OOGreen Power: Wave Of The Future The price of renewable energy – especially solar power – continues to tumble, and the result is more green power generating capacity for fewer dollars.

OOMade In America: Trump Embracing Offshore Wind? Without officially fanfare, the Trump administration is deciding that the windmills can be made here after all.

OOWhere The US Energy Storage Industry Is Happening Now – 5 US states have the potential to become energy hub and dominate the energy storage boom, bringing together workers, universities, entrepreneurs, benefactors and favorable policies: California, Nevada, New York, Michigan, and North Carolina.

OOKenya:Solar Micro-Grids Boost Fortunes Of Lake Victoria Fishermen – solar power has help boost public access to electricity to 60% in Kenya, up from 27 % three years before.

OOThe End Of Coal: EU Energy Companies Pledge No New Plants From 2020 Europe’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.

THE MORNING EMAIL

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

OOAustralia:Coalition Supporters Back Quicker Shift To Renewable Energy unlike their national leader.

· Groups for coping with grief and anger from environmental destruction are forming;

· These help people to not be overwhelmed by anger but channel it productively.

· These groups can help create seeds of action.

@@TORNADO TWINS & TRIPLETS!!! Unusual tornado family of May 24, 2016 is a great real time view of how tornadoes form and even split into 2 or more… compelling! This is Part 2 of a 3-part series of these tornadoes on May 24, 2016: view the equally compelling Part 1, The Ultimate Tornado Up Close and Part 3, Creepy Tornado Siren.

OO Tornadoes Striking At Record Pace In US So Far This Year Takeaways:

· The number of US 2017 tornadoes is climbing at a record pace.

· Powerful storm systems hit the West Coast,

· then head towards central and eastern U.S.,

· Creating tornadoes and other extreme weather events.

@@How Soon Will We Use Up Our Carbon Budget For 1.5C Of Global Warming? 4 Years.

OONew Study Links Carbon Pollution To Extreme Weather Extreme weather can occur due to direct heating from global warming, but also, new research shows, from large-scale changes to the atmosphere and oceans:

· As global warming weakens the Arctic jet stream,

· It loops into the temperate zone, like the US, and stagnates weather systems,

· Causing flooding or heatwaves on the land beneath, depending on whether

· The system is a wet or hot, dry one.

When Biodiversity Is Threatened, So Are We

OOClimate Change Impacting ‘Most’ Species On Earth, Even Down To Their Genomes indicates 3 new studies:

· Species are changing genetically in response to climate change,

· But that doesn’t mean they are adapting successfully to it.

“In many instances genetic diversity is being lost due to climate change, not just in nature but also in resources that human’s depend on such as crops and timber,”

OOClimate-Driven Species On The Move Are Changing (Almost) Everything Climate change is driving a universal major redistribution of life on Earth.

OOAntarctic Ice Reveals Earth’s Accelerating Global Plant Growth – Scientists compiling a record of the atmosphere based on air trapped in Antarctic ice found that rising carbon dioxide has accelerated plant growth.

OOBrazil: Climate Change, Deofrestation Help Spread Lethal Monkey Virus killing both humans and many members of endangered species of monkeys.

The powerful civilization was hammered into oblivion by drought and floods, underscoring the connections between climate and people, shows new research.

OO ‘Disaster Alley’: Australia Could Be Hit By A New Wave Of Climate Refugees a U.S. defense expert warns as people flee low-lying Pacific islands, a precursor to ‘climate-exacerbated water insecurities’ that could trigger wider conflict.

OOInstead of the Threat of Climate Change, Promote the Economic Upside of Its Solutions

Embracing energy efficiency and a low-carbon economy promotes:

· Jobs

· National security

· Human health

MEH: BUT SPEED IS OF THE ESSENCE: understanding the cascading threat of climate change helps speed action to a rate that prevents catastophic damage – which could overwhelm our society if we do not act fast enough.

“As the impacts of climate change become more significant, cities’ resilience will become a factor of competitive advantage…”

OOIndia: Switching To Vegetables, Oranges And Papaya Could Help Save Water India could save water and reduce planet-warming emissions if people added more vegetables and fruits like melon, oranges and papaya to their diet while reducing wheat and poultry, researchers said on Wednesday. Reuters.

OOMake Car Makers, Not Drivers, Pay For The Diesel Crisis, experts say, as they do in Germany and France.

OOSalt, Silicon Or Graphite: Energy Storage Goes Beyond Lithium Ion BatteriesTechnologies that use gels, liquids, and molten silicon or salt could all claim a slice of the growing renewable energy storage market.

Our National Heritage Is Worth Its Maintenance and gives Americans far more happiness than any of Trump’s assets. Source US Interior Department

OOUS Park Service Deserves A Bigger Check Americans love their parks and bringing the parks to full flower is a win-win-win not only for the jobs and national pride the project would generate but the political popularity that would accrue to those who made it happen.

OOEngaging The Unengaged On Climate Change – people who do not seek out information about environmental trends and their consequences. This great challenge can start within our own, personal networks.

*

*

NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

OOHow Frozen Farmers’ Fields Are An Unexpected Culprit In Climate Change, according to a new study. When thawing, a vast expanse of farmers’ fields across Canada burp significant amounts of a potent climate changing gas, nitrous oxide into the air.

OOFrench Foreign Minister: The World Can’t Fight Climate Change Without The US — at least, not fast enough to prevent even further catastrophic damage.

OOMontana:Church Leaders Are Begging Their Senator To Give Up Global Warming Denial

“We cannot remain silent while a U.S. senator from Montana chooses willful ignorance of the greatest threat this state has ever faced and which is already causing extreme damage…“ said the church leaders.

“The simple moral truth is that United States is by far the world’s largest historic contributor to the climate crisis and therefore bears the greatest responsibility for addressing it.”

OOUS Coal Companies Ask Trump To Stick With Paris Climate Deal arguing that the accord could provide their best forum for protecting their global interests.

Source Facebook

OOWith Climate Change Deniers In Charge, Time For Scientists To Step Up says noted climate researcher Kevin Trenberth, who talks about why climate scientists need to speak out in the face of the Trump administration’s denial of the facts about climate change.

OOA Timeline Of The Trump War On Science which is in full swing. Check out this interactive graphic timeline!

This Is Insulting, Says Award-Winning US Teacher Brandie Freeman, who used the climate disinformation packet created by the Heartland [Heartless?] Institute to show her students how some right wing organizations mislead the public on climate change. Source The Sustainable Teacher

Science teachers and legislators are fighting back after a conservative advocacy organization, Heartland Institute, mailed false information on climate science to thousands of school science teachers nationwide.

OOEPA Should Not Be Allowed To Dodge Clean Power Plan Ruling, Cities And States Tell Court – urging it to reject the Trump gang’s request to stall decision on cornerstone climate regulations.

We Pay The EPA To Keep Our Air, Water, and Land Clean – and under Trump, it looks like we’ll have to sue to ensure that gets done. Source news.mynahcare.com

and the water they drink, the lakes they swim in, and the rivers they fish in to be clean.”

Ridhima Pandey’s Home State Has Been Ravaged By Climate Change and deforestation. Flash floods and landslides there killed hundreds of people and left tens of thousands homeless in 2013. Source http://www.independent.co.uk

OONine-Year-Old Girl Sues Indian Government Over Climate Change Inaction highlighting the growing concern over pollution and environmental degradation in the country.

OOThailand: Fishermen Protest Proposed Coal-Fired Plant: ‘The World Is Watching’ to save their livelihood and quite possibly the ecosystem of Phang Nga bay.

OOGreen Groups Condemn UN Plan To Use $130+ Millions From Climate Fund For Large Dams

warning of serious environmental consequences for the projects in Nepal, Tajikistan and the Solomon Islands.

OOAustralia: Don’t Fund Coal Mine, Activists Plead With Govt Agency Environmental action groups including Greenpeace, Oxfam and GetUp have said this in a signed an open letter to Australia’s export credit agency..

and one of the reasons carbon emissions have been reduced to pre-1994 levels. The data show clearly that switching to natural gas and the growth of clean energy were behind this reduction.

OOCoal Is On The Way Out At Electric Utilities, No Matter What Trump Says Utilities are turning to natural gas, wind and solar to create power, a roadblock to the president’s efforts to revive the coal industry.

OOQueensland, Australia: Giant Coal Mine Granted Unlimited Water Licence For 60 Years The proposed Adani coal mine, which will be Australia’s biggest, has been granted unlimited access to groundwater by the Queensland government in a move farmers fear will drain huge amounts of water. Now wait for the next big drought.

*

*

FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes. Dance in the rain while you can!

Much of the lower 48 states are experiencing unusually warm temperatures as are the waters that surround them.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.comhere. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

OO The Big Picture: How Climate Change Will Change Life On Earth, And Us – As the global climate changes, human well-being, ecosystem function, and even climate itself are increasingly affected by the shifting geography of life. Takeaways:

· the rate at which moveable species are moving is speeding up with climate change.

· MEH: but even this does not guarantee long term survival

· species respond differently and at different rates, causing disruptions in the web of life.

· All plants and animals have temperature ranges beyond which they cannot survive;

· Some species can move, but that has limits – island edges, mountaintops, etc.

· Many species depend on others: when coral reefs die, so do many other dependent species.

· Climate change is evolving too fast for many (MEH if not most) species to adapt.

Aliens Threaten A US Native – dandelions came from Eurasia but are now all over the US, even in wilderness, threatening American native plants, like this native larkspur. Thousands of different alien plants threaten our native ones, and cost us billions to eradicate. Ask the plant pesticide industry.

MEH: climate change is just one of several extinction stresses on species worldwide, as in:

Loss of habitat

Harmful alien species

Pollution

Human hunting

Often extinction is a 1-2 punch:

it starts with a major die-off from one effect, such as climate change;

the last, weakened and stressed population is killed off by another effect, likean epidemic.

How We Destroyed Paradise is how our descendants will view ruefully what our short-sighted greed did to a planet that was formerly a very friendly environment for humanity.

OOA New Era Dawns – And It Won’t Be Human-Friendly – Human mistreatment of the planet is ushering in another era and it is not going to be pleasant, says a new book. Takeaways:

Our rampant, irrational use of the planet and its resources,

including our exploitation of climate-changing fossil fuels,

means we are disrupting the Earth system that sustains us.

Our refusal to regulate ourselves contradicts

every modern belief about the kind of creature a human being is.

OOSeven Things To Know About Climate Change in the April 2017 issue of National Geographic, shows, with lots of graphic imagery, that:

The world is getting warmer.

It’s because of us.

We’re sure. And over 97% of all scientists are.

Ice is melting FAST.

Weather is wreaking havoc.

Species are being disrupted.

7. We Can Do Something About It – switch to renewable clean energy, which is as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuels already in many parts of the world. The faster we do so the more money and resources we save.

MEH: Their featured solution is switching to clean energy, but no mention of addressing “the Tyrannosaurus rex in the room”: our unsustainably growing populations.

*

*

@@ 5 Things You Need to Know About Climate Change with Bill Nye, the science guy – the best one minute summary I know, done with humor and punch.

*

*

THE ILLUSORY PROMISE OF GEO-ENGINEERING

Okay, Buddy, Put That Test Tube Down Realllll Slow… geoengineering trades one set of somewhat understood problems, stemming from some unintended human geoengineering, for another set of which we can know little in advance. NOT a good idea.

OOTechno-Fixes For Climate Change? Not So Fast – some envision geoengineering big changes to the air or oceans to “fix” the climate changes humans have created. But, wait…

· “Scientific uncertainty is not going to be eliminated on this topic before we have to act.” – that is, we can’t wait until we are certain of all the details to act on an increasingly threatening process.

*

*

LET’S MARCH – TWICE!!

We Resist. We Build. We Rise. Let’s March for our children and our future by marching for science on April 22nd, and for the climate on April 29th one week later.

OOApril 22: Energy Grows For Worldwide March For Science,As Trump Wages War On It – Nearly 400 marches in 37 countries will take place on April 22, demonstrating global resistance to Trump agenda.

OO Big Companies Defy Trump On Climate Change – Two years ago, 365 companies and investors — including Nestlé, General Mills, Mars, Staples, Unilever, and others — signed a petition to state governors urging them to implement the Clean Power Plan. They’re still on board, despite Trump.

“We’re disappointed the administration has decided to roll back climate regulations such as the clean power plan and others,” said Edward Hoover, a MARS senior manager. “Corporations can’t do it alone. Governments play a critical role…”

General Electric CEO Gets Real on Climate Change – we need more people like Jeffrey Immelt.

OO In Rebuke To Trump, GE Chief Says ‘Climate Change Is Real’ and said climate change “should be addressed on a global basis through multi-national agreements” such as the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“If they don’t get it together, we’re going to have a different administration in four years” Said the chief utility regulator of Arkansas, and a main decision maker for energy policy, now that the feds are pulling out of it.

OOPresident Trump Risks The Planet by slashing policies that would slow the onset of further catastrophic climate change.

OOTrump’s ‘Insane’ Climate Change Policy Will Destroy More Jobs Than It Creates says global warming expert, by speeding up global warming, thus ensuring more catastrophic disasters for more businesses.

@@Why Climate Change Researchers Are Freaking Out Some transparency advocates fear public access to data might disappear, under Trump.

OOAs Trump Halts Federal Action On Climate Change, Cities And States Push On – A joint statement opposing Trump’s position, signed by US leaders representing voters that account for nearly $3 Trillion, says, in part:

“ to act on climate is to act in our best economic interests. Through expanded climate policies, we have grown jobs and expanded our economies while cleaning our air.”

(cut to 2:30 minutes in)

@@Want To Fix Climate Change? Just Ban The Phrase! – The ingenious way Trump et al have devised to fix climate change: ban the words out of existence! At least at the EPA. In Late Night With James Corden he suggests subs for: Climate Change — “Endless Summer” , Tornadoes — “Fun Time Twisty Wind”, and Earthquakes — “Dirt Twerks”.

Seriously, this could really turn into a fun office game…. As the Trump circuse attains new heights in entertainment!

OOClimate Converts: The Conservatives Who Are Switching Sides On Warming – a small yet growing number of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians are starting to push for action on climate.

OOFlorida Congress House Bloc: Keep Drilling Out Of Eastern Gulf of Mexico say the 17 members.

*

*

HOT NEWS

OOExpect More Deadly Heat From Climate Change says a new study, which finds that “we still have an unacceptable number of premature deaths related to heat waves,” in megacities under continuing climate change.

Under current trends, 350+ million additional people will be exposed to heat stress by 2050.

OORare Deadly Heatwaves Could Strike Yearly Even If Global Warming Targets Are Metwarn scientists. And if they aren’t, expect even worse, killing thousands more yearly.

*

*

MELTDOWN

Check out the first 2 minutes…

@@ Glacier Change & Sea Level Rise – via a NASA scientist. The first 2 minutes summarize how global warming will be creating major rises in sea levels. How do the ocean and ice sheets interact to drive sea level change?

OOThe Arctic Is Warm Again Because… Of Course It Is! in a story that is basically writing itself, incredibly mild air is surging into the Arctic again, cranking up the heat as melt season gets underway:

“Doorway to the Underworld” Siberian Crater Is Growing – aka Batagaika, it continues to slump and spread, along its headwall anywhere from 30 to 100 feet yearly.

OOSiberia’s Crater Is Growing Fast, Uncovering Ancient Forests from 200,000 years ago. Deforestation allowed the ground there to warm faster and melt, ultimately causing the first crater to form as the ground collapsed. Later, flooding further enlarged the crater.

Siberia is melting and changing fast as:

Permafrost melts, creating lakes, and

releasing methane sometimes explosively,

creating huge craters.

Elsewhere, tundra starts bubbling beneath people’s feet.

@@ Is A Methane Bomb About To Explode? Explosively releasing vast amounts of Arctic methane, which could dramatically speed climate warming further? The anxiety is palpable in Arctic climate scientist Natalia Shakhova’s voice (at about 5:30 minutes) in 2013 as she explains how this could happen within decades.

On the other hand, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt indicates that data do not support a likely explosion of methane release over then next few decades.

OOWhy Is Climate Change A Moral Issue? Because although the rich contribute far more per capita to climate change, the poor suffer far more from it, having far fewer resources to adapt.

OOClimate Change Is New Challenge In Fighting Disease Outbreaks says a UN health adviser, adding that poor countries need more resources and training to combat infectious diseases that are spreading in new ways and to new places, partly due to a changing climate.

Weather, or Climate Change? Actually, both: climate change affects all weather. Think about it: if the entire planet is absorbing heat, then EVERYTHING on the planet is experiencing it, indirectly, or directly. If you heat a pot of water, ALL of the water gets heated.

· extreme rainfall has created major flooding episodes in coastal areas over March,

· 110,000+ peopl have been displaced by flooding since December;

· 80+ deaths have occurred.

OOStrange Things Are Happening Off The Coast Of Peru, And Thousands Are Affected – An unexpected warmup in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is causing heavy rains to repeatedly batter Peru, causing some of the worst flooding in decades.

OOLarge-Scale Energy Storage Is The (Virtual) Power Plant Of The Future as a startup builds up the battery network needed to power homes through the night.

OOLow-Carbon Energy Boosts Human And Ecological Health by cutting in half the environmental impacts of power generation by 2050 says, new research.

OOSolar Energy And Salt Water Power Vegetable Farms In The Desert – a Norwegian company is setting up a solar-powered facility in Jordan, one of the world’s most arid countries, to grow vegetables without wasting a drop of fresh water.

*

*

NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

Imagine Leaving A Faucet On… Now Think BIG – bathrooms flood when faucets are left on, and whole areas flood when a rain system stalls over them for days.

· This difference decreases as the Arctic heats much faster than those zones.

· This slows the jet stream, causing it to meander, looping deep into warmer zones.

· The meandering brings frigid cold into the southern US, and sends heat into Alaska.

<>

· But slower winds also create more stationary patterns,

· Increasing weather pattern stalls over areas:

· If it’s rain, this leads to flooding;

· If it’s hot, sunny weather, this can become heatwaves and droughts.

Normal in 1980, Extreme Weather Now as the jet stream creates these wind paths send cold south and heat north – and stalling enough to worsen weather from normal to catastrophic. Credit Michael Mann, Penn State

Now, research shows that 6 to 8 loops in the jet stream tends to create such weather stalls, which are linked to very extreme weather events, such as:

OONew Arctic Algae Is More Proof Of Global Warming – Since 2011, algae has appeared there, brought to life by the thinning ice which allows more sunlight than ever before.

*

*

SPEAKING OUT

OOCA Gov. Jerry Brown Calls Trump’s Exec Order On Climate Change A ‘Colossal Mistake,’ and says there will be a ‘counter-movement’, predicting Trump’s actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could.

OOIndonesia: Thousands Of Anti-Coal Activists March, Deliver Complaints To Anti-Graft Agency – and focused on what activists call ‘coalruption’ in Indonesia’s mining and power sectors, which pollutes communities and destroys important community natural resources.

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes.

Practically ALL of the US is experiencing unusually warm temperatures, as well as its surrounding waters.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.comhere. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring. Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

@@ Worse Than Poop! Is a pooping-car video about climate change for kids, but I suspect even Trump and his gang could understand it – Trump does have a 6 minute attention span, doesn’t he? Anyway, it’s GREAT!!! Check it out, whatever your age, and share!

OO Tom Steyer: The Billionaire On A Mission To Save The Planet From Trump – his organization, NextGen Climate, has spent $170 million over the past four years advocating for policies and politicians that help the environment and advance renewable energy.

OO Colorado: Court Rules For Kids, Says State Must Protect Health And Environment

Before Allowing Oil And Gas Drilling siding with a group of teenagers and reversing a lower court.

OO House Science Committee To Hold Useless Climate Change Hearing – since the head of the committee denies its existence – and the list of “witnesses” that have a history of misleading the public on the real overwhelming consensus among scientists on climate change.

OO Lamar Smith: Admits House Science Committee Is Tool For His Political Agenda as he lays out political strategy at climate doubters’ conference – a shocking display of GOP abuse of science. MEH: If only all politicians could be so honest about their corruption!

*

*

LET’S MARCH

We Resist. We Build. We Rise. Let’s March for our children and our future.

OO April 29, 2017. Let’s March For A Safe Climate. says 350.org. March with hundreds of thousands of others to:

push forward with a united vision of a clean energy economy that works for all.

reject Trump’s attack on our communities and climate,

Push back against fossil-fuel-soaked nationalism, xenophobia, and hatred.

OO World Abandoning Coal In Dramatic Style Raises Hope Of Avoiding Dangerous Global Warming says report. MEH: I’m skeptical, given that other drivers need to be addressed, as noted elsewhere in this column.

How Much Of This Will Be Wasted? The climate-changing waste is now driving hotel chains to reconsider their menus. Source Pinterest

OO Global Warming Could Lead To 100,000 + More US Diabetes Cases A Year– a disease in which the body can no longer process sugar, leading to general organ damage. Takeaways:

At lower temperatures the body uses fat to stay warm;

At higher temperatures, fat is not used as much,

And blood sugar levels are also higher.

Research indicates that

As average temperature rises, so does obesity

And obesity driven diabetes cases.

Diabetes also rises even independent of obesity.

OO Scorching Phoenix May Not Survive Climate Change – a 1.5 million desert metropolis has survived so far with just 18 inches of rain a year and scorching temperatures, but an even hotter, drier future lies ahead.

OO Coal Ash: ‘Why In The World Wouldthe US Be Importing It?’ but we are, even as America’s utilities are struggling to dispose of it.

OO In America’s Coal Country, States Emboldened To Ditch Efficiency – taking their lead from Trump.

*

*

FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes. Dance in the rain while you can!

Many parts of the US and surrounding waters are experiencing abnormally warm conditions. Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing MUCH warmer than normal temperatures, and record low areas of ice cover – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.comhere. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

Once A Green Rampart Against Storms, Now Crumbling Skeletons is a vast stretch of mangroves that once protected the north coast of Australia. Credit James Cook University

OO Australia: ‘They Died Of Thirst’: ExtremeConditionsWipeOutForest Over 1000 Kilometres – a year ago, a vast stretch of mangrove forests along its northern coast; extreme conditions included record heat.

Warn Scientists – The water cycle of the Amazon has been described as “one of nature’s great wonders”, but the forest is being eaten by the timber industry, agriculture and the effects of climate change.

When we harm forests, we harm ourselves.

*

*

CLIMATE-CHANGING CO2 RISING FASTEST EVER

Source ISS, NASA

OO Carbon Dioxide In The Atmosphere Is Rising Faster Than Ever Recorded –

Takeaways:

For the second year running, atmospheric CO2 levels have climbed at a record pace.

NOAA data shows CO2 levels jumped by 3 parts per million in 2015 and 2016,

and now rest at just over 400 parts per million.

Throughout the last decade, the average rate of increase has been around 2.3 ppm yearly.

OO US Climate Scientist Sounds Alarm Over Record Carbon Dioxide Readings – as it keeps surging to record levels, marking the 5th straight year in a row that CO2 has surged by 2ppm or more, says the director of of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network in Boulder, CO.

OO How Federal Fuel-Efficiency Rules Help Fight Climate Change – Research suggests passenger-car standards work well to lower countries’ emissions.

OO Polluters Could ‘More Easily’ Commit Crimes Under Cuts – Funding for investigators that enforce federal environmental laws would be cut, uppting the chances that people, wildlife and the climate will be harmed by corporate pollution.

OO China, Leading On Clean Energy, Could Win A Resulting US Trade War –

OO California Senate Leader Wants State To Go 100% Clean Renewable Electricity By 2045 and several experts saying it can be done, depending on definitions, advancing technology, and acceptable price tags.

OO 17 House Republicans Buck Trump, Call for Climate Change Solutions – with a House resolution that noting “human activities” have had an impact on global climate and resolving to create and support “economically viable” mitigation efforts…

Even as the Trump gang mostly rejects the science or importance of climate change.

When Not In Drought, Pakistan Is Often Flooding as climate change intensifies the dry seasons and the monsoons. Their government is taking action.

OO Pakistan: Senate Passes Bill Aimed At Tackling Global Warming Challenge and they did so unanimously – what a model for the US Senate! The country is facing crippling droughts following by flooding downpours as the seasonal weather gets more extreme.

OO Brooklyn: Solar Power Experiment Lets Neighbors Trade Energy Among Themselves —dozens of homes and businesses have been wired into a microgrid, allowing members to exchange excess-electricity credits.

OO Why Solar Panels Bloom In Southwest’s Land Of Hydropower Electric utilities are seeking a new power mix, as shifts in precipitation diminish the role that dams have long played for western states.

But Much More Needs To Be Done says the International Energy Agency, to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures. A greener energy mix helped keep energy-related carbon dioxide emissions flat in 2016.

OO Climate Change Needs To Be Tackled For Better Health US medical groups urge, as they form

a new consortium on climate and health.

Extreme Weather Harms People Mentally and Physically

OO Here’s What Global Warming Actually Does To Your Body the new Consortium on Climate & Health , consisting of over half of all US medical doctors, have created a list of resulting health complications. A sampling:

rising temperatures can lead to heat stroke, dehydration, and the worsening of chronic diseases;

In A Few Decades – deepening already existing fears, as accessible fresh water has fallen by two-thirds over the past 40 years.

OO Climate Change Could Make North Africa And Middle East ‘Uninhabitable’

OO Climate Change Key Suspect In India’s Vanishing Groundwater as a new study links India’s water crisis to climate change, which has weakened recent monsoons. Imagine THAT country going dry.

<>

Climate Change Threatens Not Just Polar Bears, But the US Soda IndustryScreen capture from Youtube

OO Over 900 Examples Of How Climate Change Affects US Business were illustrated by Harvard MBA students. Samples include:

How water scarcity will affect Coca-Cola;

How extreme storms affect insurance companies;

The environmental impacts of the apparel industry.

OO Maine: Farmers, Foresters And Fishermen Know All About Climate ChangeAlthough mostly conservatives, these people are happy to detail exactly how abnormally warm weather is affecting their livelihoods. A sampling:

Fishermen note that the lobsters and other fish are migrating to cooler areas;

Maple syrup farmers are coming up dry on the maple sap needed;

Timber workers complain of how costly it is to remove trees on thawing, rather than frozen, ground.

Lawmakers need to listen to the people who make a living off the land.

In California, That Water Likely Came From Snowpack that is becoming increasingly unreliable under continuing climate change.

OO Sierra Snowpack: As World Warms, California’s Most Important Water Source

Becomes LessReliable Takeaways:

Between 2012-2015, snowpack was just 10% of what it is now;

As the planet warms further,

Snowpack could plummet even further to just 1+% of what it is now,

Indicate new studies.

California is an important source of vegetables and fruits for the entire US.

OO Global Warming Effects On Colorado River Is Serious responsible for up to half of the decline in the flow of the river, says a new study.

OO Climate Change To Up Wildfires In Mediterranean Europe says a new study.

From Ancient Colorful Reef to Rotting Corpses: Not What Tourists Want To See … Nor Smell – divers came up from dead areas of the reef reeking of the stench of rotting coral and other reef life. Such destruction undermines much of the biodiversity of and food from the sea, and our dependence on it. Source the Ocean Agency

OO Much Of The 500,000-Year-Old Great BarrierReef Is Now Dead scientists find, with even the largest and oldest corals affected.

OO Great Barrier Reef Tourism Headed For Tough Times As Coral Bleaching Worsens

extreme haze events in winter will likely occur more often in China as the Arctic heats further.

this increases the urgency to cut both air pollution and climate-changing carbon emissions.

human emitted greenhouse gases are responsible for 50-66% of the fall in summer Arctic sea ice since the late 1970s.

Capetown Botanical Treasures Are Also Threatened – many endemic flowers grow in and around Capetown, such as this flower that grows atop the town’s Table Mountain.

OO South Africa: With 100 Days Of Water Left, Cape Town Risks Running Dry The city is the crown jewel of South Africa’s tourism industry.

OO Nearly All Caribbean Countries Have Experienced Prolonged Droughts that challenge their food production, in one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change. Now, they’re trying climate smart agriculture.

“Where’s Our Food?” you can almost hear these baby birds crying; when migrant birds breed out of sync with food plants that sprouted early and are now gone, such babies die.Source http://www.duskyswondersite.com

“A recent global survey found that climate change had affected 80+% of the biological processes that underpin all life…”

Political storms are also brewing via the general tactics of the Trump White House, focused also on climate change:

promoting “get rich quick” schemes for the few rich at the expense of public safety;

Promote ignorance and disinformation when facts get in the way of these’ schemes.

Distract and confuse with anecdotal stories that promote intolerance and discriminatory practices.”

Barcelona’s Green Mayor Wants to Keep It Beautiful by cutting down on air pollution and traffic. Source http://www.hbc333.com

OO Barcelona Mayor Declares War On “Injustice” Of Of Private Car Use Air pollution is “a social issue because it affects the most vulnerable people – children, those who are ill – so it is a problem of the city, not just an issue that abstractly affects the sustainability of the planet.”

OO Australia: Sports Stars Call For Abandoning A Proposed Coal Mine Cricketing greats Ian and Greg Chappell have signed an open letter calling on Indian billionaire Gautam Adani to abandon his company’s proposed Queensland coalmine.

*

*

FOSSIL FUEL FOLLIES

US Automakers Seek Profits Before America’s Health – as both our climate and health suffers from relaxing fuel emissions.

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes.

Much of the US — and areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

Under current conditions, these “undersea rainforests” will disappear forever within 10-30 years.

Once these reefs are gone, we lose permanently an important source of:

Food for over half a billion people,

coastal protection from storms and erosion,

and biodiversity.

We know human activities are fueling global warming, but are failing to act.

Ultimately, this story is our failure of intelligence and morality. Like bacteria, we are:

Reproducing without recognizing our resource constraints,

Using those resources wantonly,

And in doing so, ensuring the collapse of our populations

– as surely as bacterial populations collapse in a lab dish.

A Slice of Incredible Coral Reef Life is revealed under ultraviolet lighting, exposing the truly wild colors of corals – just the tip of the beautiful berg of life we are losing as coral reefs are destroyed by climate change. Credit Jourday at reefbuilders.com

“You couldn’t be more dumb … to erode the very thing that life depends on — the ecosystem — and hope that you’ll get away with it,”— Biologist and Global Change Institute Director, University of Queensland Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.

Colorful Soft Corals Also Are Part of Reefs – this is likely a Caribbean reef. Probable Credit: Mika Specta

Coral reefs:

Provide habitat for a quarter of all marine species;

Form crucial coastal storm barriers;

provide billions of dollars in revenue from tourism, fishing and other commerce,

reef species are used to produce cures to diseases ranging from bacterial and viral to cancer.

“Whether you’re living in North America or Europe or Australia, you should be concerned” added Hoegh-Guldberg.

An Acid Future For Our Oceans is developing, as more CO2 is absorbed acidifying the seawater, as the past and projected rises in acidity above show. Source Tobias Friedrich, University of Hawaii

OO Fact: Humans Caused 100% Of The Past Century’s Global Warming show overwhelming evidence, and supported by 97% of all scientists. Yet, only 48% of US adults believe humans cause it, while only 40% believe it will harm wildlife, weather patterns, or shorelines.

OO Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds sometimes. [MH: I change my mind with facts, and so do others.. Let’s grow this “revolution”!] New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. Takeaways:

Reason developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.

“Confirmation Bias” — the tendency to embrace information that supports one’s beliefs and reject those that do not – is a serious constraint on reason.

Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” the researchers noted.

Whether You Believe It Or Not, Gravity Is A Fact with consequences. So is climate change, which operates under the same set of physical laws. Source creativeenglishvocabulary.com

The “illusion of explanatory depth” effect, nearly ubiquitous,

is when people believe that they know way more than they actually do;

enhanced by collaboration, it creates fuzzy boundaries of

where one’s own understanding ends and that of others begin.

Credit Mike Keefe at the Denver Post

This gets us in trouble politically,

where understanding facts is crucial to deciding large scale actions.

Often “strong feelings do not emerge from deep understanding.”

And if feelings, not understanding, bind people together,

then “tribal” communities of ignorance can develop that are impervious to facts.

Thus, working through the policy implications of proposals TOGETHER is far more effective than pontificating.

ignoring an unpleasant truth and replacing it with something benign and untrue,

or shifting blame on other causes, such as sunspots.

<>

Others fit Freud’s minimalization definition:

Humans cause climate change, but

it’s too costly to address, or

not as important as other problems.

Climate deniers both deny the science and needed policy to address it.

Calling deniers anything less (eg, “doubters”) is misleading and irresponsible.

*

*

TRUMP TRUMPED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

OO Trump’s Climate Views: Combative, Conflicting And Confusing – In 2009, he co-signed a full-page NY Times advertisement calling for “meaningful and effective measures to combat climate change.” Now, he refers to climate change as a hoax or a joke.

OO If We Stop Collecting Data, Will Climate Change Just Go Away? No, Virginia, it won’t.

In his seventh week in office, President Trump decides we should stop measuring things.

Compromising Coastal American Safety and greatly upping the pricetag of adaptation if it isn’t tackled now.

EPA Now Home to Climate Skeptic Clowns – and dark clowns indeed, if they refuse to acknowledge the reality of climate change, which threatens the safety and security of Americans and the USA. Photo Source Business Insider

OO EPA Head Scott Pruitt Has Already Broken Trust And 5 Promises To Congress now that he has the job.

The broken promises are:

1. To recognize climate reality – he said that EPA’s conclusion on how climate changing gases like CO2 endanger human health and welfare “needs to be enforced and respected” and is unquestionable. Now, he denies CO2 drives climate change.

2. To stand up for science – he said “science must serve as ‘the backbone’ of EPA actions.” Yet now, he directly contradicts the findings of scientists at every major American scientific organization, which are based on decades of intensive, peer-review research and data.

Credit Adam Zyglis at the Buffalo News

3. To enforce clean air and water rules – Pruitt said he wanted to “restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe.” Now he supports a 24% cut to the Agency’s budget, including clean air and water programs.

4. To be consistent on states’ rights – he claimed to favor greater authority for states. Now he’s considering revoking California’s right to have stronger clean air standards for cars.

5. To fight all forms of pollution – he claimed concern about dangerous pollution like mercury, smog and methane, butt now withdrew an EPA request for information about methane pollution from oil and gas drilling. So much for concern.

This is important — beyond our desire to have public officials with integrity, our kids’ health is at stake.

@@ CO2?Nah, Not a Problem, Says EPA Head Scott Pruitt – countering almost all climate scientists and world leaders on climate change.

OOEPA Scott Pruitt’s Office Deluged With Angry Callers After He Questions The Science Of Global Warming – The calls to Pruitt’s main line, 202-564-4700, reached such a high volume that agency officials created an impromptu call center, said three agency employees.

“Countries are going to pay for climate change one way or another. The best way to pay for it is by tackling the root causes of climate change and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.” — Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, USMC (ret), CEO of the American Security Project.

Whether Pruitt believes CO2 drives climate change or not, by law “ he is required under the Clean Air Act to promulgate policies that reduce carbon pollution… to reduce the risk of serious national security consequences of climate change.” — Andrew Holland, Director of Studies, American Security Project.

“…2015’s record temperatures are the result of the gradual, yet accelerating, build up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists have been warning about it for decades and now we are experiencing it.”— NASA Chief Major General Charles Frank Bolden, Jr., (USMC-Ret.)

What Climate Change? Ignoring climate change is an invitation to experience ever more dangerous levels of it, sooner and faster.

“Pruitt is just wrong:

Carbon dioxide emissions pose an enormous risk to human health.

Carbon pollution is the leading contributor to greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Climate change is causing more heatwaves and drought, more intense extreme weather events,

expanded range of disease-carrying ticks and mosquitoes and a host of other threats to health…

The science is clear: We need immediate action to reduce carbon emissions to protect public health.”

“Scott Pruitt’s statement questioning climate science is deeply troubling. Businesses in the US and elsewhere are keenly aware that human activity is remaking the climate in ways that create disruption and business risk. … his approach will undermine the conditions that businesspeople need to innovate, create jobs, and compete in the global marketplace.”

– It Could Change Everything A groundbreaking climate lawsuit, brought against the federal government by 21 children, has been hailed as a bold new strategy to press for US climate action.

OO Activists Rush To Save Government Science – Disappearing data include pie charts on a DOE website illustrating the link between coal and greenhouse gas emissions as well as the description on an Interior Department page of the potential environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing on federal land.

This points to a nonpartisan problem of digital-age government:

Much of the scientific information so painstakingly collected over the decades,

‘The Memory Of All Of The Past Climate Change’ – The world is getting warmer every year, thanks to climate change. Takeaways:

most of that heat is going into the oceans – especially the Atlantic and Southern oceans —

far more than previously estimated,

which explains why sea levels have been rising so much –

all that heat is expanding the seawater.

<>

Increasing heat moving into the oceans

Could lead to ocean “dead spots”

Where a hot surface layer prevents mixing with cooler lower ones.

Mixing is essential in moving nutrients and fueling marine life.

A Prescient 2001 CartoonCredit Tom Toles at the Washington Post

OO Earth’s Oceans Are Warming 13% Faster Than Thought, And Accelerating as human activities are pumping climate changing CO2 faster and faster into the atmosphere – at a rate that has increased 40+ % since 1980 says new research. We are speeding the heating of the planet, which is speeding climate change.

more:

OO Rate Of Ocean Warming Has Nearly Doubled Over Two Decades study says, and the extra heat has reached deeper waters, finds data stretching back to 1960.

Droughts and Heat Set Earth On Fire with wildfires occurring throughout the world. Source NASA

Arctic Circle Could Be Ice-Free With Just A 2C Rise In World Temperature – for the first time in 100,000 years, scientists have warned. Keeping global heating to a 2C rise is the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Loss of Arctic sea ice:

Could have ‘catastrophic’ weather effects in much of the northern hemisphere;

Will speed up global warming:

Arctic summer sea ice acts like a thermal shield,

reflecting much sunlight (and the heat it represents) away from Earth;

Water and electric power plants don’t mix well naturally, unless you add some wind.

OO A New World Leader Is Emerging In The Battle Against Climate Change: China – it’s a much larger climate changing polluter than the US, but it’s doing far more to address the climate change it is causing, unlike the US.

OO China Is Moving Closer To A Carbon Tax For Cutting Emissions and away from the EU’s emissions trading model, a senior Chinese official said.

Wikipedia

OO Harvard Disburses $1 Million For Climate Change Research to multidisciplinary research programs across five different schools at Harvard. Nice, but far outweighed by government cuts to research.

OO Saudi Aramco’s Green Energy Push Seen Widening Appeal Of Its Initial Public Offering of stock. When this, the world’s largest oil company, sells shares for its foray into renewables, it may lure investors who would otherwise be forced to stay away – but some are demanding transparency.

*

*

SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS

OO Unhealthy Environment Causes 1 In 4 Child Deaths under the age of 5, both inside and outside the home, say 2 new reports from the World Health Organization – that’s more than 1.7 million children dying annually.

OO Source Of Mekong, Yellow And Yangtze Rivers Drying Up as the headwaters of the Tibetan plateau are evaporating because of climate change and desertification. Creating parks that preserve watersheds could help slow the process.

Changing The First, Tackles The Second – says a series of studies reaching the same conclusion: our diets must change to help successfully mitigate climate change, and climate change mitigation must be included in policies to improve the food system.

Just substituting healthier sources for half the calories of a typical American diet, the study found, would:

OO Pressed, Not Baked: A Green Recipe For Making Tiles And Bricks by compressing the raw ingredients creates bricks stronger than concrete, with far less energy needed, show Swiss researchers.

*

*

NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

OO Australia: A Single Type Of MicrobeTurnsLake Pink as hot weather evaporates it, making it so salty, only one type of saltwater microbe can survive – and it’s pink, coloring a biological desert, for now, until the rains return.

But the loss of biodiversity throughout the world isn’t rosy and it’s permanent, for the world or us.

—Or Twice The Length Of TheCountry, Each to cover the 2.7 million miles of pipeline snaked across the US. Some of the pipes carry hazardous chemicals, others carry crude oil, and still others carry highly pressurized natural gas. Feeling safe?

OO Oil Price Will Soar Sharply In The Next Decade Without Investment In Capacity and this will create economic shockwaves due to our dependence on cheap oil for growth, says Daily Climate Editor Brian Bienkowski, who recommends this read.

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

OO India: Barefoot Solar Warriors Take On Gender Injustice And Climate Change – a college is training uneducated women to be solar technologists in India and developing countries worldwide via Indian subsidies. India itself is embarking on a massic transition to solar power.

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep 60+% of the state in a GROUNDWATER drought, which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes. Dance in the rain while you can!

Meanwhile, most of the US is experiencing unusually warmer temperatures.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

And the chances of Donald Trump’s family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly.

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in this 45 lb Titan Mushroom found in Chiapas, Mexico, also home to the Lacandon rainforest (see below), is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests.

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

A Jaguar Home That Is Now Protected – along with hundreds of other animals, including 400 species of often colorful, tropical birds. Source Panthera Colombia

Further bleaching is now underway: Dramatically slowing and reversing global heating is the only answer to saving these vital ecosystems, scientists conclude.

*

*

TRUMP TRUMPED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

Credit Steve Breen at creators.com

Donald Trump’s Own Children Likely Face Climate Apocalypse in their lifetimes; the likely crash of civilization that follows will crash their fortune and survival chances for their kids – and all of ours. Unless, of course, Trump acts to cut emissions, hugely. Source heavy.com

An overall 17% cut to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reflecting sharp specific cuts on education, grants, and research.

NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research will get a 26% cut to its current budget. [MEH disrupting the careers of the current and budding scientists who will lose their research funding.]

the single largest cut will be a 22% cut to NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service,

which includes a key repository of climate and environmental information [information is disappearing from federal websites; teams of experts around the country have organized events to “rescue” as much information as possible and make it available elsewhere to scientists for research.] AND

Rick Spinrad, an ex NOAA chief scientist, said: “NOAA’s research and operations, including satellite data management, support critical safety needs. A reduced investment now would virtually guarantee jeopardizing the safety of the American public.”

You’d Want to Know If This Is Headed Your Way, Wouldn’t You? Yet Trump proposes cutting back drastically on the agency that supplies that kind of information. Credit Matt Clark at flickr

Resulting real safety failures would include:

compromising weather warnings for tornadoes and hurricanes;

navigational capacity used to help guide commercial ships and other mariners would suffer,

leaving them without the “improved forecasts they need to safely maneuver coastal waters.

It could become harder to warn of tsunamis and forecast weather that will cause power outages.

What Cities Looked Like Before The EPA – the agency left a legacy of clear air for cities; now that legacy might disappear.

OOTrump Wants To ‘Zero Out’ EPA Programs especially many climate-related programs and grants that help state and local governments enforce environmental laws, says the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

Temperatures on the Antarctic continent reached a record-breaking high of 63.5 degrees Fahrenheit (17.5 degrees Celsius) in 2015, according to a new report of balmy records for the bottom of the world.

Scientists estimate that the world’s permafrost holds twice as much carbon as the atmosphere.

OO Antarctic Ice Has Set An Unexpected Record Low On Sea Ice and scientists are struggling to figure out why.

*

*

GOOD CLEAN NEWS

OO Japan Accelerates Wind Power Development As Govt Support Pays Off says a new study. Japan’s installation of new wind power capacity in 2016-17 is set to almost double that of the previous 12 months, helped by higher government tariffs, and a rising number of offshore wind farms.

the transition to a decentralized energy system as part of transitioning to clean renewable energy.

OO Ethiopia Looks To Carbon Trading As It Gears Up To Be Net Carbon Neutral By 2025 – Under Ethiopia’s Oromia Forested Landscape Program, the country’s region with highest concentration of biodiversity is on track to benefit from vital environmental protections.

To Soar To $40+ Billion Annually By 2100 in just major coastal cities, indicates a new study, if, as currently, global carbon emissions continue to track the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s worst emission scenario.

Within 13 years, annual losses for these cities are estimated to reach $1.2 Billion.

And bringing the citizens on board with the changes: “All our citizens are really aware we need to push the boundaries to fulfill our goals,” she said..

OOACity’s Solar Potential Depends On The Length Of Its Road Network – says a new study, showing that those with the longest roads allow optimizing buildings orientation and location, to optimize solar intake.

Thus, rainy Portland, Oregon, has an extensive road network and therefore a surprisingly large solar potential.

*

*

NATURAL REPERCUSSIONS

OO How Disappearing Sea Ice Has Put Arctic Ecosystem Under Threat The Arctic will hit a record low extent of sea ice very soon, topping a loss of 2+ million square kilometers within 40 years. When sea ice disappears:

Polar bears literally lose their hunting grounds, and starve;

The base of the Arctic food chain, certain algae, lose their home;

Narwhals, the unicorns of whales, lose their hiding place from killer whales,

Seals lose their birthing grounds.

Almost all wildlife are being disrupted by the fast pace of global heating in the Arctic.

OO Northern Hemisphere Sees An Early Spring Due To Global Warming – arriving an average 26 days earlier than just 10 years ago, the early spring is causing problems for the natural cycle of plants and wildlife.

*

*

SPEAKING OUT

@@ Debunking Leaders’ Climate Denial Is A Real Teachable Moment says federal scientist Ben Santer on Late Night With Seth Meyers, which helps elevate the discussion and educate the public about the reality of climate change.

OO Scientists Are Poised To Start A New Movement arguing for politics grounded in evidence.

What Americans Think About Global Warming – The Climate Opinion Maps give an interactive glimpse into US view of threats from global warming, allowing users to see the Americans’ opinions on climate change by state.

OO ‘Disastrous’: Australia’s Carbon Emissions Jump As Coal-Fired Power Ramps Up after the scrapping of the carbon price, making it harder to meet its emissions targets.

OO Big Australian Banks Invest $7 Billion More In Fossil Fuels Than Renewables says report, even as it suffers worsening heat waves due to continued climate change, caused by burning coal and other fossil fuels.

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

*

*

POPE FRANCIS WEIGHS IN

OO ‘Pope Francis Has Urged Us To Have Fewer Children,’ claims Vatican academy member, “to make the world more sustainable,” during a Vatican-run workshop on “how to save the natural world” .

The panel concurred that the survival of the planet is tightly linked to the number of people on the planet.

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Half of the US is experiencing unusually warmer weather while the other half is getting another Arctic blast, as the Arctic jet stream, loosened and loopy from being slowed by global warming, now often plunges down into the US, way off its usual course just decades ago. Western US coastal waters continue to be warmer than normal, not good for fisheries.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice, which is hitting record lows in extent. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.comhere. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.

And the chances of Donald Trump’s family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly.

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in this collage of Amazon wildlife, is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests.

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon

Two Different Greens, Soy and Forest – the first feeds cattle and ever more people; the second is vital to preventing dangerous climate change, and preserving vital biodiversity. Credit Ricardo Beliel at BrazilPhotos

OO Amazon Deforestion Once Again Soars Driven By Soy Production – and in the Bolivian savannah as well, exploding demands from growing populations outstrip current supplies. Takeaways:

Amazon deforestation has nearly doubled in 2 years to 2 million acres in 2016,

Driven by agro giants

Seeking remote lands with weak regulations

To grow mostly soy that fuels the production of meat for ever more people.

<>

Savannah is also an important carbon-storing and biodiverse ecosystem,

But Bolivia places food sufficiency over its preservation.

<>

Only about 15 % of the world’s forests remain – the rest are degraded and fragmented.

From Green to Gray – as Bolivian forest is destroyed to grow crops, especially soy. Imagine the thousands of species of plants and animals that have lost their homes due to deforestation. Credit Jim Wickens at Ecostorm

OO Brazilian Savanna, Bolivian Rainforest At Risk From Soy Production says a new report Takeaways:

Soy is the main feed for livestock that supply fast food chains like Burger King.

Nature’s Choruses Are Slowly Fading – when we destroy forests and other natural ecosystems, we forever silence many voices that also had a right to live on Earth.

*

*

HALF OF THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE MAY BE GONE BY 2050

A Few Of Many Friends We Are Extinguishing via a combination of numbers of people and our consumption of resources. Source www.somepets.com

OO Half Of The World’s Species Could Become Extinct By 2050 biologists say, unless we humans can tackle climate change and slow our population growth.

Dozens Of Animal And Plant Species Go Extinct DAILY, scientists estimate, disappearing at 1,000 to 10,000 times the natural rate, primarily from human activities driving habitat loss, introduction of exotic species and global warming. Source http://www.tourdestfu.com

OO At The Vatican, A Call To Avoid ‘Biological Extinction’ – ‘Nothing less than a reordering of our priorities based on a moral revolution can succeed,’ say sponsors of the recent conference.

A working draft of a paper presents the case that we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction of plant and animal life the globe has seen—with considerably dangerous, catastrophic consequences for humanity:

“Translated into the language of equity, humanity’s enormous success in recent decades is very likely to have been a down payment for future failure.”

@@ Biodiversity – Why Is It Important? A View From Down Under. It’s not just species, but the web of life, upon which humans depends, that is threatened.

Consuming resources sustainably: no further destruction or damage of the regenerating sources of vital resources.

*

*

NEARLY 50 % LIKELY:

GLOBAL WARMING WILL DRASTICALLY, RAPIDLY COOL

NW EUROPE, NE NORTH AMERICA, BY 2100

Feeling Chilly Yet? Global warming has a nearly 1 in 2 chance of triggering a rapid, drastic regional cooling within a decade for lands bordering the North Atlantic before 2100, much sooner than thought possible previously, new analyses show. Source “Day After Tomorrow” official movie trailer at youtube.com

By 2100 Nearly 50% Likely scientists warn, due to climate change. For millennia, parts of northwest Europe have enjoyed a climate about 5C warmer than lands elsewhere at the same latitude. New analyses of reputable climate models indicate:

An almost 50% chance of rapid cooling –within a decade –

Of the North Atlantic, which will rapidly cool nearby northeastern America and northwest Europe.

<>

Normally, as seawater flows north it cools, gets denser and sinks,

Pushing warmer, deeper water to the surface –

It’s like a giant heat conveyor belt: this warms the regional climate .

<>

As global warming melts Arctic glaciers, the enormous flow of

freshwater forms a lighter layer over the heavier North Atlantic seawater;

this risks slowing and even collapsing the cycle of

sinking heavy cold water and uprising warmer deep water.

@@ How Climate Change Might Already Be Slowing the Heat Conveyor Belt as explained by some very respected atmospheric and climate scientists.

Such a collapse would shut off a major source of climatic heat

for the surrounding coasts, northeastern North America and northwest Europe,

far outweighing the global warming atmospheric effect.

<>

New research shows that this collapse occurs in nearly 50% of

the climate models that best simulate North Atlantic stratification (temperature layers).

Despite the usual uncertainty inherent in such analyses,

Researchers warn that overall, that percentage underestimates the real chances.

Donald Trump’s Own Children Likely Face Climate Apocalypse in their lifetimes; the likely crash of civilization that follows will crash their fortune and survival chances for their kids – and all of ours. Unless, of course, Trump acts to cut emissions, hugely. Source heavy.com

it’s shunting a series of storms to the west coast, and cutting off arctic air to the rest of the US.

Monthly record hot averages are being broken throughout the US, including night time average temperatures.

Both are signs of ongoing climate change.

“This week has been an up close look at the DNA of what we are seeing in the big picture: relative to historical norms, extreme heat continues to outpace extreme cold across almost every place, season and time of day in the USA.” — Deke Arndt, who leads climate monitoring at the NCEI, National Centers for Environmental Information, a federal agency.

*

*

MELTDOWN

@@ A New Gigantic Crack Presages a Coming Massive Antarctic Iceberg which could destabilize the ice shelf of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Each new iceberg helps further the speed of pouring more glacier into the sea, and ensuring more sea rise.

Think Ice Cubes – the iceberg, already overhanging the sea, doesn’t add to sea rise, but the ice behind it that is unleashed by the breakoff of the berg then becomes the new ice shelf – which is like adding more ice cubes – and sea rise – to the ocean.

OO Massachusetts Bill Would Require State To Use 100% Renewable Energy By 2050

OO The Age Of The Giant Battery Is Almost Upon Us – That they may someday revolutionize electrical grids has long enthralled clean-power advocates and environmentalists. Now it’s attracting bankers with the money to make it happen.

OO What’s Next For Renewables In Cities? Plenty – it all depends on many factors, but rooftop solar is taking off in cities worldwide, as it becomes cost competitive with other energy sources.

homeowners with solar panels and batteries could soon trade their electricity in a digital marketplace developed by a consortium of electricity providers, energy tech startups, energy retailers and energy agencies.

OO China: This Is What 4 Million Solar Panels Look Like From Space On the Tibetan Plateau in eastern China, 4 million solar panels silently soak up the sun as part of the largest solar farm in the world, spreading over 10 square miles of the high desert landscape.

OO Thousands Forced From Homes By Flooding In California Tech Hub, San Jose

See below for Why Califronia Is Flooding

OO South Florida Continues Prep For Sea Level Rise this sounds like a slow motion rollout of the little kid plugging his finger into the dike. Good luck at keeping back the sea.

OO New Hampshire: Maple Syrup Producers Face Challenges In Warming World and say they are feeling the impact of climate change, as winters become warmer and frigid nights so critical to their business become fewer.

But At A Heavy Cost in the coming decades, says a major climate change study, as Vancouver temperatures exceed those of present-day Southern California in the coming decades.

OO Global Warming Is Shrinking US Colorado River, Vital To 40 Million Americans says a new study. The most important waterway in the American Southwest could reduce its flow by more than a third by 2100.

OO Africa: Somalia Faces Unprecedented Drought Even the hyenas won’t eat the dead sheep, goats and camels, which litter the landscape in Somalia’s northwest Somaliland region. There is too little meat on them.

Waiting For Water as military trucks roam the city delivering water daily. Credit Christina Holmes

OO Peru: La Paz Struggles In A World Without Water after losing its glaciers. Takeaways:

Close to 40% of the andes’ tropical glaciers melted away between 1980 and 2009.

In La Paz, human incompetence further ate into finite water resources.

Can It Be Saved From Us? Pollution (chemical, fecal, plastics), overfishing, habitat destruction, and the warming and acidification of climate change have all led to plummetting marine assets. A video explores the issue.

OO Plan To Save Great Barrier Reef Has Been Set Back Decades Australian experts say, at least two,

after the fragile ecosystem suffered its worst-ever bleaching last year.

OO Climate Change In The North Sea: Oysters In, Cod Out – as it warms, for now. MEH: As the sea further warms and acidifies, you can forget even oysters … start thinking jellyfish and algae, often toxic algae.

OO Why Floodplains Could Be California’s Buffer Against Climate Groundwater recharge, flood protection and wildlife habitat all depend on floodplains. Now there’s a new movement underway in California to revive them in order to ease California’s dramatic swings between drought and flood.

OO New York Energy Efficiency Could OffsetNuclear Plant Shutdown says a new report.

OO Urban Heat Islands: Cooling Things Down With Trees, Green Roads And Fewer Carsand other innovations as city temperatures rise.

A flexible white film about the thickness of a sheet of aluminum foil can cool objects in direct sunlight without energy or water consumption, researchers reported earlier this month in Science. Anthropocene Magazine.

OO Changing Carbon From Waste Into Gold by pulling out carbon dioxide from plant emissions, and using it to create saleable products. Can it help?

OO Drones Are Helping Design The Solar Power Plants Of The Future – A cottage industry is growing around new technology for solar power developers to design, build and operate solar farms.

OO How EU Can Limit Coal’s Life For The Cost Of A Pint Of Beer – Charging a carbon tax of $32 per ton of carbon dioxide would cost each European about $5 annually, the price of a beer. It’s getting cheaper all the time to drive Europe’s dirtiest power plants into retirement.

OO What Will It Take To Get Canada’s Arctic Off Diesel? An Inuit community is building a small hydro project that might be a model for many others.

OO Deep Sea Life Faces Dark Future Due To Warming And Food Shortage as a new study reveals negative impact of climate change, human activity, acidification and deoxygenation on ocean and its creatures.

OO Groups Sue EPA To Protect Wild Salmon From Climate Change seeking to protect wild salmon threatened by rising water temperatures attributed in part to climate change in two major rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

Even As Recent Heatwaves Spark HealthWarnings – Australia’s government continue to ignore the link between that, and selling the coal that intensifies them via global warming. Note the purple – that where temperatures are soaring over 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Source news.com.au

The Destiny of Many Eastern US Forests which are cut and sold to Europe to be made and burned as pellets.

OO The EU’s Renewable Energy Policy Is Making Global Warming Worse – with member countries wasting money by subsidising the burning of wood for energy says a new report.

OO Most Wood Energy Schemes Are A ‘Disaster’ For Climate Change – Using wood pellets to generate low-carbon electricity is a flawed policy that is speeding up, not slowing down, climate warming, shows a new study, which says emissions from pellets are higher than coal.

*

*

FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Most of the US is experiencing far warmer temperatures than normal, with monthly average records being broken. Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep the state in a GROUNDWATER drought , which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

*

*

*

There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at WordPress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower and beetle I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.